Set It Free
by Dr. Monster
Summary: Jane has to tell Maura her secret today; she can't keep it in any longer. This is a collaboration with Dr. Franklinstein.


**I don't own Rizzoli and Isles. This is a collaboration with Dr. Franklinstein . Thank you to my beta sarahhaley. I also don't own the music in here. **

Jane Rizzoli is in agony. She is in actual pain trying to keep her love for her best friend, Maura Isles, a secret. Jane doesn't like secrets - even when she was a little girl, she didn't like the idea of purposely keeping something from someone.

Jane hated to keep this bottled in, but she couldn't tell anyone else. Her mother wouldn't understand. She couldn't tell Maura, obviously, Frankie would try to help, but he was a guy so he wasn't good at romance. Tommy and Jane haven't gotten along since Tommy was thirteen so that was a big no. Korsak was bad at anything women so… also no. Frost would just tell her to kiss Maura and see what happens, and Jane can't risk her friendship like that. She has to be sure she has a chance.

Jane is jittery, her scared hands shaking as she tries to drink her coffee out of the cup, her mind racing over every possibility of what could happen - some possibilities, Jane likes, and others, she doesn't. But she has to do it. It rips her heart apart every time that she sees a man looking at Maura, and it shatters each and every time she smiles back at them. Jane can't take another moment of Maura not knowing. She has to tell her today.

Jane slowly retrieves Jo's leash and clips it to her collar. Walking out the door, all Jane can think of is if the possibility of Maura kissing her, Maura holding her hand, Jane hugging Maura close to her and smelling her rose-scented shampoo. Jane wants more than anything for Maura to feel the same, and for them to live happily ever after, but Jane has to make the first move. She can't wimp out today. Jane walks Jo back inside, scratching her behind the ears and going to gather her things.

She makes it down to her car and gets in before she has any time to talk herself out of it. What if Maura doesn't feel the same? What if she laughs at her? What if she is already dating someone? What if she's in love, or, worst of all, what if Maura never talks to her again? Jane can't do this. Maura means to much to her.

No, Maura wouldn't do that. Maura at least cares for her as a best friend, and if this all blows up, maybe Maura would still be willing to be friends.

Jane takes a deep breath, strains her back, squares her shoulders, puts her keys in the switch and turns her car on. The radio comes on, playing the end a love song, Jane turns it up to hear it better.

_"I've found a reason to show_

_A side of me you didn't know_

_A reason for all that I do_

_And the reason is you…"_

The next that song comes on is slower.

_"You know I'd fall apart without you _

_I don't know how you do what you do_

_'Cause everything that don't make sense about me_

_Makes sense when I'm with you_

_Like everything that's green, girl I need you_

_But it's more than one and one makes two_

_Put aside the math and the logic of it..."_

Jane smiles at that, thinking of Maura. The song changes.

_"You're just a Fantasy girl_

_It's an impossible world_

_All I want is to be with you always_

_I'll give you everything_

_Pay some attention to me_

_All I want is you and me always_

_Give me affection_

_I need your perfection..."_

This has to be a sign of encouragement. Her radio station doesn't play love songs often.

_"All this time _

_We were waiting for each other_

_All this time_

_I was waiting for you. _

_We got all these words_

_Cant waste them on another..."_

Jane hopes that Maura will fell the same way. These songs have to mean something! She wonders if Maura is waiting for her to say something.

_"Is it that way that you talk _

_that causing me to freak_

_Is it the way that you laugh _

_that's making my heart beat _

_First impressions are hard to erase_

_Etched in my mind and it just won't go away..."_

Jane is grinning from ear to ear now. She changes the station.

_"Damn girl_

_Damn, you's a sexy chick_

_A sexy chick_

_Damn, you's a sexy chick_

_A sexy chick_

_Damn girl_

_Damn, you's a sexy chick_

_A sexy chick_

_Damn, you's a sexy chick_

_Damn girl..."_

Yep, definitely grinning.

_"Cause when I saw you I knew_

_My heart turned upside down _

_it took a spin around_

_Cause the girl I found_

_She got me off the ground_

_And I'm wrapped around her finger_

_like a diamond ring_

_Cupid let me get her _

_cause she makes me sing..."_

Jane is filled with confidence. The love songs give her the push that she had so desperately needed. She is ready. Jane pulls her can in her parking space and shuts off the engine. This is it. There is no stopping now. Jane gets out of the car.

* * *

Walking with extra swag in her step, Jane purposefully makes her way down to the morgue, not wanting to delay any more time in asking if her best friend would like to take their relationship to the next level.

Just as she rounds the hallway leading to the double door entrance, Jane hears the faint sound of the M.E.'s cell phone coming through the propped open door.

"Doctor Isles?" Jane hears Maura say after the second ring. "Hello Brody!"

Ugh, damn. It's that sleaze-bag she met at the coffee shop a couple days ago. Regardless, Jane continues to swagger down the hallway, now just a couple feet away.

"I wasn't expecting to hear from you today. No you're not interrupting anything! I can't do lunch today as I already have plans with a friend, but afterwards..."

Jane stops dead in her tracks. Her heart falls to the floor, shattered. Jane doesn't hear what else Maura has to say. She just runs back the way she came. Her swagger, gone.

_With a 'friend'?! Shit!_

Her confidence, crushed.

_Is that all I am to her?_

Her heart, shattered.

_Is that all I'll ever be to her?_

She barely makes it back to her car before the first tear falls. Wiping angrily at her face, she jams the keys into the ignition, throws the car into drive, and speeds off.

The detective doesn't make it far before her emotions overpower her, forcing her to pull over.

After jerking the car into park, she unfastens her seatbelt and repeatedly beats her head back into the headrest. She tries to take deep calming breaths, but that does nothing to assuage the agony she feels.

Desperate to expel the ever-building heartache from her body, she begins pounding the steering wheel with the palms of her hands. Over and over and over again. Only when the pain in her hands becomes too much to handle does she still her movements. Then her whole body starts to tremble—her heartache bouncing around through her entire being, trying to find its way out, trying to find any sort of release.

Slowly, scarred hands clench the wheel tight enough that the knuckles turn white before a quick flex of her arms rips out a long, gut-wrenching scream; finally forcing the ache out of her body.

Moments after such an excruciating event, Jane's forehead is slumped over the top of the steering wheel. After catching her breath, she straightens herself out, has a look-over in the rearview mirror, and resumes her previous journey back to her condo.

* * *

Jane speeds all the way back to her condo, wanting this day to be over.

Maura doesn't feel the same. She never has.

Jane keeps thinking about this, unable to process any other thought. She had to vent out her frustration. She had to get physical. This is the only way Jane knows how to keep from curling back into bed and never coming out again. She had to beat something. Now.

Jane pulls into her condo's parking lot and runs all the way up to her door, not wanting any of her nosey neighbors to stop her. Once inside, she immediately pulls out her self-defense dummy and puts on her gloves. She hits the doll as hard as she can, over and over again, picturing Maura and Brody kissing. The two of them walking down the street holding hands. She hit harder and harder, she pictured them cuddling on Maura's couch. Them eating at a fancy restaurant. Them having sex. Them getting married. Them having kids.

That kills a little part of Jane as she hits the dummy as hard as she possibly can. Jane's arms were shaking from the exertion but she doesn't stop, she can't. It won't be her kissing Maura, or doing anything to or for her.

This is it, this is how her life is going to be. Maura the best friend - not Maura the girlfriend, Maura the partner or, most heartbreaking of all, Maura her wife.

Jane hits the dummy once more, before she falls to the floor, exhausted, her arms shaking from overuse, her legs unable to hold her up any more.

Jane rips the gloves off, and cries. She pulls her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, as her whole body shakes from the sobs. She rocks back and forth on the hard wood floor, crying out all of her frustrations.

She manages to calm down after a good twenty minutes of body wracking sobs, when she hears a loud knock at the door.

* * *

Jane remains seated on the floor, hoping that if she ignores the person banging on the door that they will eventually go away.

No such luck.

"Jane?!" Maura's normally angelic voice comes bellowing through the door with a twinge of anger, followed by more banging.

Wiping the tears off her cheek with the pads of her fingers, Jane pushes herself up off the floor and makes her way over to the door.

Pausing with her hand outstretched on the doorknob, Jane composes herself one last time before facing the rarely seen wrath of her best friend.

"What are you doing here?" The detective inquires nonchalantly as soon as she opens the door, seemingly eerily collected.

Ignoring the question the question altogether, Maura strides past Jane, stopping next to her couch before spinning back around to face her.

"You know, I've had my fair share of people canceling on me, but I never expected to get that treatment from my best friend. Not once did I think you'd do that to me!" Maura all but shouts to Jane, who is now standing in front of the door facing the smaller woman.

"I don't know what to tell you, Maur. Maybe you really don't know me at all." As soon as the words leave her mouth, the detective knows it is a low blow. Maura is the only person she's let close enough to see her true self.

This strikes a nerve in Maura. "Excuse me?! What has gotten into you Jane? We were fine just last night!"

"God, are you really that oblivious?" Jane says to herself, no bite to her words.

She really is a dumb genius.

It's now or never.

She takes a step towards Maura, squaring off. "It's you Maura. You're what's gotten into me. You hold my heart—my body recognizes it and my heart finally accepts it." She confesses quietly.

Maura stands, slack-jawed at this confession.

"But then I heard you say to Brody, that you were having lunch with, and I quote, 'a friend'. Hearing that—" Jane breaks off, her throat constricting; she clears her throat and tries again. "Hearing that I was just a friend to you, when I feel so much more for you... it broke my heart."

"Oh Jane." Maura sighs out, a grin slowly growing on her face. She turns and strides to the couch. Once settled, she pats the cushion signaling for the brunette to join her.

Once Jane sits down next to her, Maura reaches out and cups Jane's hands in her own, rubbing her thumbs across the knuckles.

Even though the touch is soft and gentle, Jane hisses at the contact due to the scrapes of hitting her punching bag so hard.

Bringing one hand up to her mouth, Maura kisses it with the lightest of touches, then lifts up the other and does the same before settling both their hands onto her lap.

Looking into Jane's eyes, Maura is the one to speak. "I've loved you for so long Jane, but I never thought you felt the same about me. So I had to let you go and try and move forward. I kept telling myself that if you did not return the same feelings as me, then we were never meant to be. But if you did, then I would be with you, loving you forever."

At this confession Jane smiles so big that her cheeks hurt. Maura grinned back at her.

They slowly lean in towards one another and their lips meet in a gentle, tentative kiss.

Each loving the way the other's smiling could be felt through the kiss.

Breaking away, Jane is the first to speak. "I love you, too, Maura. Always have, always will."


End file.
